WASTE 55 



Every penny of this expenditure was devoted, 

 not to increasing the national capital, but to 

 preventing its increase. 



But drinking is only a part of the evil. A 

 second great cause of waste is the bad work 

 done by inefficient labour and incompetent or 

 fraudulent employers. It would not be easy to 

 give an idea of the proportions reached by this 

 kind of waste, but consideration will show that 

 it is enormous. Every bit of work so done that 

 it must be done again is waste. We know on 

 good authority that whole trades have been 

 lost owing to adulteration. Many an inspecting 

 officer could tell us of buildings almost pulled 

 down and reconstructed, owing to attempts to 

 use indifferent material. 



A third and great cause of waste is the strikes 

 now so common, not in Great Britain only, but 

 all over the world. They are one of the results 

 of the want of harmony between employers 

 and their workmen — harmony not only seldom 

 attained but rarely striven for. 



The artisan, however well he does his work, 

 once he has finished it has no further interest 

 in what he has done. He may put all his skill, 

 all his thought, all his strength into his day's 

 work, and then he never sees the result again. 

 He may hear that the mill he works at has 

 turned out in the year so many bales of goods, 

 but he hears little more. A bricklayer is perhaps 

 a little better off, for he, at any rate, may always 

 see the building on which he was engaged ; and 

 a farm-labourer is better off still, for he sees 



